Please sign the petition below to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis currently in Kentucky’s Capitol Rotunda, and replace it with a tribute to Muhammad Ali, “the Louisville Lip” and “the Greatest of All Time.”
I just heard from the Ali family: It is the Champ’s belief that Islam prohibits three-dimensional representations of living Muslims. Accordingly, I have adjusted the petition to call for a two-dimensional representation of Ali (a portrait, picture or mural) in lieu of a statue.
UPDATE (Tuesday, December 2, 2014)
In this interview with WHAS-TV’s Joe Arnold, Governor Steve Beshear endorses the idea of honoring Muhammad Ali in the State Capitol (although he disagrees with removing Davis). Arnold explores the idea further on his weekly show, “The Powers that Be.”
Click here to check out WDRB-TV’s Lawrence Smith’s coverage of the story.
And here’s my op-ed in Ali’s hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal.
UPDATE (Saturday, June 4, 2016)
In the wake of the 2015 Charlestown tragedy, in which a Confederate flag-waving murderer united the nation against racism, all of the most powerful Kentucky policymakers — U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, Governor Matt Bevin, Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Greg Stumbo — called for the removal of the Davis statue from the Rotunda. Today, as we commemorate last night’s passing of Muhammad Ali, there is no better moment to replace the symbol of Kentucky’s worst era with a tribute to The Greatest of All Time.
UPDATE (Wednesday, June 8, 2016):
Great piece by Lawrence Smith of WDRB-TV in Louisville on the petition drive to replace Jefferson Davis’ statue in the Capitol Rotunda with a tribute to Muhammad Ali.
UPDATE (Thursday, June 9, 2016):
Excellent piece on the petition drive by Jack Brammer that was featured on the front page of the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Highlight of the article:
Miller said he has received a few “angry comments” on his call to honor Ali.
“One of them encouraged me to kill myself,” he said. “You can quote me that I have decided not to take their advice.”
UPDATE (Friday, June 10, 2016)
The petition drives continues to show the Big Mo(hammed): check out these stories from WKYU-FM public radio in Bowling Green and WKYT-TV, Channel 27 in Lexington:
UPDATE (Saturday, June 11, 2016):
Still not convinced? Check out this excerpt from today’s New York Times:
There’s a concept in sports of playing down to the level of your competition. This occurs when a strong team struggles to beat a weak team because they do not play at their best. Mitt Romney is a vastly superior candidate in terms of organization, skills, and resume than Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich (let alone Herman Cain and Rick Perry). Romney’s not as strong as, say, a Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but he should have had no trouble dispatching a group of competitors who struggle to even qualify for the ballot, fund their travel, and fill out their delegate slates in key states. Romney’s been playing down to the field and it’s badly damaged his chances for victory in November.
In playing down to a subpar field Romney has taken extreme positions that he won’t be able to Etch A Sketch away. In order to box out Rick Perry, he staked out the most extreme position on immigration of anyone in the field and badly damaged his standing with Latino voters. In order to box out Rick Santorum, Romney was forced to support the Blunt amendment which would allow employers to deny women preventative healthcare, to make a lot of noise about eliminating Planned Parenthood, and to support so-called “personhood amendments” like the one that Mississippi voters rejected as being too extreme. The result has been a stunning decline in the governor’s support among women, particularly women of child-bearing age. The latest USA Today/Gallup poll shows that Romney’s support among women under 50 in 12 key swing states has dropped 14 points in a single month. Over the same period he went from beating President Obama by 2 points in swing states to losing to him by 9. Romney may want to use a Men in Black style mind-eraser trick once he’s through the primary but Democrats are unlikely to allow voters to forget where Romney stood in order to box out his far-right competitors.
Read the rest of… Krystal Ball: Mitt Romney Has Been Playing Down to his Competition
By Chris Schulz, RP Staff, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
The first debris from last year’s Japanese Tsunami is getting close to US shores. Officials will have to figure out the best way to deal with it. [yahoo.com]
Scientists have recently discovered evidence that our ancestors may have been using fire earlier than previously thought. [latimes.com]
Plans to build a factory in Brazil make deriving fuel from algae one step closer to an economic reality. [nytimes.com]
Rep. Yarmuth proposes taking subsidies away from oil companies and giving them to car owners. That may be a short term solution to rising gas prices but only hurts any long term strategy of energy independence. [leoweekly.com]
Quinoa is a super food that has recently gained a global appeal. This means rising prices for the Andean farmers but also increased headaches and concerns. [yahoo.com]
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
I’d like to issue a formal, written and heatfelt apology to all dogs I’ve ever make beg for treats.
When I was a boy, I found it amusing and felt a sense of power and control when I could hold a tantalizing but small treat just far enough away from reach to make the innocent animal to strain to stand on his hind legs–sometimes even expecting the dog to “dance” –before finally tossing the tiny morsel in the air as a reward for my amusement.
I am truly sorry.
Now that I am an adult, I hate it when other adults I work for do this to me (figuratively speaking).
It’s awful and I hate it.
And unlike most you dogs, I’m not very good at it and don’t look very cute doing it.
By Krystal Ball, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 11:30 AM ET
Yesterday, in my appearance on Martin Bashir’s MSNBC show, Bashir Live (See Clip below), I lost it a bit over Reince Priebus’ comparison of the War on Women to a War on Caterpillars. In my spluttering rant, I listed evidence of the many ways in which the War on Women is very much real and very much a product of the GOP working with shadow organizations like Americans United for Life (AUL). Below are a SMALL and not nearly comprehensive sample of the provisions being introduced nationwide which are designed to shame women and dictate to them what they can and can’t do. Please email additional examples to me at kmb.uva@gmail.com.
900 anti-choice provisions introduced so far in 2012
War on Planned Parenthood
***Please note that only 97% of what Planned Parenthood does is preventative health care or providing birth control and other contraception which DECREASES the need for abortions. One in five American women have relied on Planned Parenthood for services.
In 2011 – 7 states passed bills defunding or limiting funding to Planned Parenthood (IN, KS, NC, NH, WI, TN, TX)
In 2012 – 8 states are considering legislation to defund or limit funding to Planned Parenthood (AZ, IA, MI, NE, NH, OH, OK, PA)
Congressional Republicans nearly shut down the government last year trying to defund Planned Parenthood
Congressional Republicans launched a bogus investigation of Planned Parenthood last summer based on equally bogus Americans United for Life “research” and gave Susan G. Komen for the Cure an excuse to discontinue their partnership with the organization
In Texas, Governor Perry decided he would rather low-income women go without preventative health care than have them receive it from Planned Parenthood.
Transvaginal Probes
Legislators in 13 stateshave introduced 22 bills seeking to mandate that a woman obtain an ultrasound procedure before having an abortion. Of these, 7 states are pursuing the staterape vaginal probe variety.
Insurance Coverage
Legislators in 11 states(AL, IN, KS, MI, NE, OK, OR, SC, TX, UT and WV) have introduced 18 measures that would restrict abortion coverage under all private health insurance plans.
Legislators in 23 states(AL, AR, FL, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, MI, MT, NE, NJ, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TX, UT, VA and WV) introduced 49 measures that apply to exchange coverage.
Georgia legislator Rep Terry England compares women to cows and pigs on his farm in support of bill forcing women to carry even unviable fetuses to term.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett justifies forced ultrasound bill by telling women to “just close your eyes.”
There is a price to invoking race too frequently. It goes something like this: allege bias and racial motivations often enough, and the case gets old. Then, when the time comes when there is a genuinely ugly racial moment, and the claim needs to be made, it seems more shopworn than moving.
I have seen this equation play out countless times in Alabama, and I thought of it as the outcry builds over the shooting of an unarmed black child in Florida named Trayvon Martin. The details remain vague but there is at least an outline of what occurred. A neighborhood resident notices a black teenager who seems out of place to him; without reason or provocation, and contrary to the instructions of the police dispatcher he called, the man apparently follows the teenager. At some point, the two encounter each other and the episode ends horrifically. A 17 year old with no history of violence, and nothing in his past to suggest he would resort to violence, is shot dead. The shooter was allowed to leave without being arrested and without even being subjected to an alcohol or drug test.
The shooter had a bloody nose and it suggests that his meeting with Martin turned into an altercation. But the case seems an almost perfect storm of bad, flawed intentions: one man’s suspicions of a kid who looked neither menacing nor suspicious; a police department’s insensitive decision to let the shooter walk away from the scene of a death; the local prosecutor’s failure to see probable cause to convene a grand jury; and a state deadly force law that might have been written for the jungle and not the confines of a community. It is morally clear enough that, yes, the Justice Department ought to be preparing an assault on the law as well as an investigation of the shooting.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The Other Trayvon Martin Tragedy
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Fri Apr 6, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
The Politics of Pigskin
Arkansas head coach Bobby Petrino has been put on paid leave Thursday after a motorcycle accident this past weekend. It was discovered that Petrino who is married with 4 children has been having an affair with an Arkansas employee half his age. [USA Today]
Rather, my deep disappointment is directed toward the most famous Jonathan Miller.
For those of you who are under the age of 50 and have never tried to Google me, THE Jonathan Miller is “is a British theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor,” best known for being a frequent guest in the early 1980s on The Dick Cavett Show.
That Jonathan Miller also recently committed an act of transparent anti-Semitism.
Miller co-signed a letter (along with three dozen other British actors, directors, and writers, including two-time Oscar winner Emma Thompson), asking Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London to withdraw its invitation to an Israeli theater company “so that the festival is not complicit with human rights violations and the illegal colonisation of occupied land.”
A charge of anti-Semitism, of course, is quite severe, especially concerning a fellow Jonathan Miller. And I’m not one to consider every pronouncement against Israeli policy anti-Semitic or even anti-Zionist.
Furthermore, I strongly support a two-state solution in the Middle East that would require Israel to return most of the West Bank lands it captured in its defensive struggle for existential survival during 1967’s Six Day War. I believe that criticism of the occupation, and particularly of many of the Jewish settlements in these territories, can be — in the proper context — a profoundly Zionist statement.
But this is far from the proper context.
Read the rest of… Jonathan Miller: Jonathan Miller’s Anti-Semitic Act
By Zack Adams, RP Staff, on Thu Apr 5, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
The Politics of Tech
600,000 Mac computers infected with a botnet and counting. 57% of infected Macs are in the US. The virus is designed to steal personal information. [ars technica]
Augmented reality glasses from Google. Badass. [NY Times]
The Pirate Bay teams up with independent artists to promote there music. [Torrent Freak]
For as long as I can remember in politics, Democrats have always taken it on the chin from Republicans about not being pro-business or not being concerned about small business issues.
An event this week in Washington D.C. proved otherwise. I had the opportunity to join a delegation of about 25 business leaders (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents) from my hometown of Kansas City, Mo. This group consisted of CEO’s, small business leaders, entrepreneurs, and elected officials. It had the clientele of a Chamber of Commerce event. The only thing was we were at the White House meeting with senior officials from the administration to share business ideas, work together on solving problems, and identify ways that the federal government could help or get out of the way to make Kansas City, Mo. grow and thrive.
Interactive dialogue between the group and the chief economist for the U.S. Department of Commerce, deputy secretary of education, President Obama’s top advisors, and the assistant secretary for administration at the Department of Health and Human Services all took place in D.C. Shocking right? Not really, but that is what many political pundits and opposition to the president would like you to believe.
The fact that the White House and the administration is reaching out and bringing individuals into the policy making process is positive. Being part of the process and reaching out to the business community, whether large or small, should stand above the political rhetoric filling up our heads these days. All of the relative and salient points made at this meeting will go into a report for President Obama.
Read the rest of… Jason Grill: Democrats and Small Business
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